Monday, August 31, 2009

Huey's (Poplar)

A few weeks ago after visiting the new My Big Backyard exhibit at the Botanic Gardens, we found ourselves starving in East Memphis. (We had planned to eat tapas at the garden but ended up playing too long and missing them.) I'm not sure how we decided on Huey's much less the one on Poplar rather than the one in Midtown, but that's where we ended up.

Satchel (age 7) goes through serious burger kicks, but he wasn't currently on one. I told him that Huey's always wins best burger in the Memphis Flyer's Best of Memphis poll, thinking I might persuade him. "For real?" he said, impressed. "For real," I said. He still didn't seem sold, but then I remembered the potato soup. Satchel is always interested in potato soup! Jiro (age 5) is always interested in french fries. I'd been wanting to try the sliders (a.k.a. Little Miners). I figured we were golden.

It was about 7:30pm on a Thursday when we rolled in. The monkeys paused by the candy machines in the entry way to verify that they could indeed get a quarter after completing their meals before agreeing to sit down. The seat yourself sign was up, so we headed to a booth in the back.

As soon as we sat down, the monkeys noticed a sink attached to the wall, among other things. And of course they couldn't miss the frill picks in the ceiling. "This place is awesome!" they both agreed. (Had we sat next to the wall you can draw on, I'm sure they would have been beside themselves.) We were off to a good start!

Our drink orders were taken right away and I was very impressed by the way the kids' waters arrived. They were in the regular water glasses with a plastic top and straw added. A major improvement over the usual styrofoam.

It only took us a few minutes to decide what we wanted to eat. Potato soup for Satchel, potato skins for Jiro, a trio of Little Miners for me, and a Senor Huey for Warren. Since we had run the kids ragged at the Botanic Gardens, they were sitting quietly. Jiro requested a notebook to doodle in. (On a later visit the monkeys were presented with activity pages and crayons. Not sure if our waitress forgot this time or figured we were all set.)

Our food came out in about ten minutes, which was excellent. Satchel complained that I failed to order his soup without green onions, but they were easily removed. Despite having potato dishes of their own, the monkeys still liberally helped themselves to my french fries. Satchel was actually dipping french fries into his potato soup!

I thought for sure that someone would want one of my sliders, but both monkeys were content with the Potato Fest they created for themselves. The sliders were okay, but not great. I would definitely recommend sticking with the usual Huey burger.

The highlight of the meal came when we were done eating and the monkeys were given the go ahead to shoot their frill picks into the ceiling. Satchel was actually quite good at it and got three or four in. Jiro tried and tried, but never quite made it. (It was clearly more fun to try.) I laughed as they attempted this feat and I must have laughed a bit too hard, because they challenged me to do it. I failed miserably. It's way harder than it looks!

Once we were out of frill picks, and could no longer find any on the floor, we were able to get the monkeys out of the restaurant. On the way out they were both magnetically drawn to the ice bin which was wide open on the backside of the bar. Had I been two seconds slower they both would have had their hands in there. It was the one tiny crack in this super kid-friendly restaurant.

Satchel and Jiro talked about Huey's non-stop for the rest of the week. A few short days later we found ourselves back at the exact same one. (We sat next to the drawing wall on our second visit.) That still did not sate the children. Warren ended up making a whole vat of Huey's potato soup at home, which the boys ate for five days straight!

Here's the Huey's Potato Soup recipe--I clipped it out of a magazine six years ago!